K. Nicole Kindred – Sustainability Consultant

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to attend World Pulse LIVE at the Paley Center for Media in New York City.

World Pulse is an organization that strives to bring a voice to women around the globe using new technology and media. One example of this was in the My Camera and Me against a Regime video – a video that was uploaded from a mobile phone by a women who was arrested during a Sudanese protest. World Pulse allows for an online area where women can come together to find and share their success stories.

For World Pulse LIVE, Martha Llano from Colombia, Beatrice Achieng from Uganda, and Sarvina Kang from Cambodia were selected to come to the US to discuss how they are using new media and technology to facilitate them as grassroots leaders.

The women told powerful stories of how they found their voices. In Martha’s talk she spoke about the dangers of living in the Columbia cloud forest and how she had learned to overcome the dangers. When people told her she should carry a gun, she refused, saying “I will not take a gun to speak for me, because I have my own voice and words”. She emphasized the importance of thinking globally and acting locally.

Sarvina told her story of being the only literate individual in a family of 35. She was the only girl in her family and her village to go to college and now has her Master’s in NGO leadership. She emphasized the importance of education for women in creating change and preventing social problems like sex trafficking.

Beatrice told her story of growing up in Uganda and her emphasis on HIV prevention and education. She emphasized how if you give hope to one girl, a grassroots leader will emerge. She told the story of how when her last brother died of AIDS, her mother lost all hope because only men can own land in Uganda; however, after she told her story on the World Pulse platform, the World Pulse members emphasized that they were behind her and she stood up to her village for the land and was able to keep it.

When asked what the women thought would be most beneficial to their communities in spreading their voice, all three women emphasized that their was a lack of technology in their communities, and solar panels would be an easy remedy.

World Pulse LIVE is also available launching an online tour for individuals who are not able to attend the event in person.

This has been an exciting week in New York! It started out on Sunday with the Stand Up Against Poverty event at Lincoln Center. I volunteered at the event with the Oxfam Action Corps – New York City. In 2000, world leaders committed to meeting by 2015 Eight millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which set targets for eliminating extreme poverty, ensuring universal primary education, combating HIV/AIDS, improving maternal health, and other important global tasks. Ten years later, we are nowhere close to meeting these goals. The Stand Up event hosted a number of different organizations working towards the MDGs.

This week, world leaders met in New York to discuss the MDGs. I had the opportunity on Tuesday night of listening to Bolivian President Evo Morales give a talk entitled, “Nature is not for sale: The rights of Mother Earth.” The President discussed Bolivia’s struggles with climate change and that in order to save humans, we must first save the earth. We need to rethink our current economic model and find a way to pay our ecological debt. It was inspiring to hear a world leader talk on that level.

Last night I attended Bring Your Own Cause. BYOC is a networking event for individuals interested in international development. The evening hosted a number of interesting organizations. Both Community Lab and the Oxfam Action Corps NYC hosted the event.

Do you know where your chocolate comes from?

Since 2001, the U.N., the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) and other human rights groups have worked to address the rampant exploitation and slavery of workers, typically children of the Ivory Coast and Ghana, which produce about 60 percent of the world’s chocolate. But despite nobel efforts, the groups’ agreements have done little to improve conditions. About 3.6 million West African children work on cocoa farms, many of whom make very little to no pay while under horrific conditions. This dire situation has led some to refer to cocoa produced in these regions as “blood chocolate.”

So why has nothing changed? Blame chocolate and agricultural companies like Mars and Cargill, who process 400,000 tons of cocoa each year and demand that prices stay low. Chocolate companies “have been able to control initiatives meant to eliminate forced, child and trafficked labor in West Africa’s cocoa industry.” Companies purchase cocoa through small farmers at a very low cost, refusing to pay prices that comply with Fair Trade practices.

However, European Union members and several other countries of the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) (not including the United States) signed a new agreement last week at a United Nations conference. The agreement reestablishes countries’ commitments to making the $10 billion abuse-ridden cocoa industry more sustainable and fair to workers, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). But this move will only help improve conditions so much. Things can’t really get significantly better until the world’s largest consumer of cocoa, the U.S., finally decides to take the cocoa high road.

The U.S. ambassador to Ghana recently announced that since January, the U.S. has been importing much more cocoa than ever thanks to two new processing facilities built by ADM and Cargill, one of the top five global processors of cocoa beans. U.S. cocoa imports are expected to increase, too, as American businesses are busting down the door asking for new contracts in the impoverished country. In the past year, there’s been 100-to-200 percent more requests from Americans seeking to do business in Ghana, the second-largest producer of cocoa after the Ivory Coast.

This means small farmers in Ghana and the Ivory Coast will be pushed to produce more cocoa. Unless they are protected under Fair Trade contracts, rampant exploitation and slavery of workers will most likely continue.

Change.org has a petition that you can sign to Tell Big Chocolate CEOS You Want Fair Trade Cocoa!


Democracy Now! also has a video up on YouTube from their “Chocolate’s Bittersweet Economy”: Cocoa Industry Accused of Greed, Neglect for Labor Practices in Ivory Coast story describing the chocolate industry in Western Africa:

Last night I attended SOCAP10 Coast to Coast.  The event brought together a diverse group on individuals – including consultants, investors, students, teachers, and non-profit leaders – interested in the intersection between money and meaning. It was also part of the lead up to the SOCAP10 conference in San Francisco this coming October.  SOCAP10 bring together the world’s leading social investors, philanthropists, entrepreneurs and thought-leaders to discuss the future of social enterprise.

Last night’s event was co-hosted by Acumen for NY. The Acumen Fund is a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. They to prove that small amounts of philanthropic capital, combined with large doses of business acumen, can build thriving enterprises that serve vast numbers of the poor with investments focused on delivering affordable, critical goods and services – like health, water, housing and energy – through innovative, market-oriented approaches.

Acumen Fund also hosts an online community where individuals can share what they are doing solve social, environmental, and economic problems.

One of the main points that came out of last night, was that even if you do not have an idea for a social enterprise to solve the world’s problems, your expertise are still needed for those who do have good ideas.

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend the #promise conference as part of Internet Week New York. The day long conference hosted a variety of speakers from large corporations such as Pepsico, MTV, and GE to internet start ups and non-profit organizations.

The goal of the conference was to explore the ways in which people are using the internet and social media to engage people in conversations to create change.

The first part of the day featured speakers from Pepsico, Timberland, and GE. Pepsico spoke primarily on their recycling campaign, while GE spoke on their healthymagination campaign. Both of these speakers seemed like a giant commercial and I was a little nervous, that the entire day was going to pan out into a big greenwashing conference, but fortunately the rest of the day was a bit more enlightening. One of the good things that did come out of the morning talks was that all the corporations recognized that the reason corporate social responsibility exists is that individuals are influencing corporations to create change and become more responsible for their actions.

One of the gifts that we got when we signed into the conference was a copy of Douglas Rushkoff’s book, Life, Inc. One of the panel sessions sat down with Rushkoff to discuss his book and the concept of how the world became a corporation and how we can now take it back. Rushkoff stressed that the best business is business that does something good. The doing good is profitable, maybe not at the rate that investment bankers like, but in terms of overall sustainability.

People are spending money to fill up their gas tanks all the time, but where is that money going?

The video above, “Follow the Money” exposes the secret that oil, gas and mining companies don’t want consumers to know: That while mining and oil drilling are multibillion-dollar industries in some of the world’s least developed countries, the people of these countries are only losing more.

A bipartisan bill now in Congress would help empower people by making oil, gas and mining companies open their books. This simple act of public disclosure would be an incredibly powerful tool for communities to demand accountability from their leaders — but some industry lobbyists are working to stop it.

I just wrote my members of Congress to urge them to open the books on mining and oil drilling — but my letter alone isn’t enough.

So I’m asking everybody: Will you join me in demanding justice for these people and communities?

Please, click here to write your representatives in Washington — it should just take a moment, and it could make a real difference to people and communities around the world.

As part of their human impact stories, tcktcktck.org has recently added Oxfam’s report on climate change adaptation in poor countries.

Climate change is fast pushing communities, particularly the poorest and most marginalized, beyond their capacity to respond. Across the world, subsistence crops are approaching the limits of their viability as temperatures change, erratic rainfall patterns and changing seasons are upsetting agricultural cycles and many are left struggling to feed their families.

Oxfam’s report draws on case studies from around the world and Oxfam’s experience working with rural communities to set out what is needed and a range of interventions that are available to enable people living in poverty to adapt to climate change. Nonetheless, there are limits to adaptation, and without rapid and significant global mitigation, these options will be quickly lost.

The report identifies the need for a combination of bottom-up and top-down processes in order to create the enabling conditions needed for people living in poverty to adapt to climate change.

Source: tcktcktck.org and Oxfam UK

In partnership with Opportunity Collaboration and in honor of International Women’s Day, World Pulse is inviting social entrepreneurs and non-profit leaders who work on empowering women and alleviating poverty to apply for the Cordes Foundation Fellowship. This fellowship provides a PulseWire member with the opportunity to participate as a Delegate in the Opportunity Collaboration.

Opportunity Collaboration is a four-day strategic and problem-solving retreat for nonprofit leaders, for-profit social entrepreneurs, funders and social investors. The aim is to break down the silos of unproductive competition and go beyond the boundaries of conventional poverty alleviation. The retreat takes place, October 15-20, 2010 in Ixtapa, Mexico

Fellows participate fully in all aspects of the Opportunity Collaboration. In addition, Fellows may earn a certificate of completion awarded by the University of the Pacific Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship. This on-site professional training symposium covers areas critical to the success of organizations and individuals creating social impact and combating poverty. The curriculum is designed in partnership with the Fellows and other Opportunity Collaboration Delegates.

To learn more about eligibility and the deadline for applying, please visit www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire/groups/17867.

Most of the world’s population lives in urban areas. In the developing world, these urban areas have been drastically increasing in population over the past 50 years. This has lead to higher density and resulted in urban slums as people look for affordable housing options.

A new vision of urban planning was presented in a study issued today.  The vision involves a flexible building design that would allow residents to expand their homes upwards by up to three floors – as and when their families grow – and create socially and economically successful communities that are as dense as, or even denser, than buildings that are up to six floors high.

The new design, which promises a brighter future for millions of the world’s poorest urban citizens, is detailed in a study and multimedia collection funded by the International Institute for Environment and Development and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. Its launch today coincides with the opening of the United Nations Fifth World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro, where thousands of delegates from governments, academia and nongovernmental organisations will discuss solutions to the
challenges of urbanization.

The following is a short film on the Karachi settlements and the study’s conclusions:

For more information, please visit www.urbandensity.org